Muslims believe that
assigning a role for chance in the creation of the universe and its
subunits--animate and inanimate--is anti-Islamic and a denial of God’s absolute
control of the universe. Many Muslims, particularly Adnan Oktar, known as Harun
Yahya, with the help of Christian creationists lavishly promote this belief
through Muslim newspapers and magazines and create skepticism, especially among
young Muslims living in the West. These young men and women studying in Western
universities get little guidance from Imams at their mosques. Many Imams (in the
West and the East) have little knowledge of science and its workings. When asked
about the human evolution, they say it is a theory but they cannot render a
scientific definition of the word. Imams, in general, are incapable of giving
believable answers to our budding anatomists, embryologists, paleontologists,
molecular biologists, physicists or chemists in our prestigious universities.

Many Muslim parents
living in the West have scientific training, which they use in their daily
lives. Unfortunately, they too are poor guides for inquisitive young Muslim
minds. They tell their children that scientific theories could be proved wrong
at a later time. They ask these intelligent young men and women to listen to
their Imams and believe what they say. On the other hand they, not only
encourage but also sometimes pressure their children to major in scientific
fields. What an amazing contradiction! Encouraging the study of science but
rejecting its discoveries!! People like Harun Yahya, using out-of-context quotes
from scientific journals mislead Muslims, who are scientifically unschooled,
into believing the fundamentalist Christian doctrine of the so-called
“scientific” creationism. Furthermore, these Muslim cohorts of fundamentalist
Christianslead young Muslims, studying science in American universities,
into disbelief because they discover the flaws and half-truths in an imported
“scientific” creationism.

Yahya and other
anti-evolutionist Muslims reject chance events happening in nature. For them,
the universe, with its animate and inanimate matter, is a clock and God is the
clockmaker. The clockmaker set the clock in motion and it continues to tick away
towards the Day of Judgment. This miraculous clock never slows down, never run
fast and never stops. A perfect clock!! If the universe does run like a clock,
then future events should be precisely predictable. Our whole lives and futures
are predetermined and we have no freedom to actualize any possibility or affect
any change in the universe. The universe is a mechanical clock whose function is
predetermined in the past and all God does is watch it tick away. What we have
is an unemployed god!!

What do we mean by
chance? Simple meaning of the word is something that happens unpredictably with
out discernible human intention or direction and in dissociation from any
observable pattern, causal relation, or natural necessity. The events become
unpredictable in two ways. They become unpredictable because we are limited by
the lack of detailed and accurate knowledge at the micro-level. In such cases
chance means that we are unable to determine all the micro-factors of the
initial conditions that determine the macro-events. In another scenario, the
observed event is the result of the crossing of two or more independent causal
chains and we have no accurate information about the chains themselves or the
beginning small events or about their point of intersection. Chance also means
possibilities that are not visibly actualized. A universe without chance or
possibilities exists only if creatures do not have the potential and freedom to
steal or not to steal, believe or not believe in God, etc. In a deterministic
chance-absent universe, humans cannot choose freely what they want but are
forced to submit to destiny. In a deterministic universe, we can say Wahshi
had no choice in killing Hamzah (ra) in the Uhud war because it was meant to be.
Hind d. Utba, who paid Washsi to kill Hamzah (ra) and, who then cannibalized
him, also had no choice in the matter because it was destined to happen. Muslim
world is predestined to be ruled by oppressive regimes and their government
sanctioned form of Islam. Chance, for the ordinary Americans including to see or
not to see the true face of Islam, is irrelevant to their perception of Muslims
at large as terrorists!!! Their perception about Muslims as terrorists is
destiny too! In the first case, God becomes the ultimate puppeteer who pulls the
strings on puppets such as Wahshi, Hind d. Utba to kill and mutilate one of the
great companions of Prophet (pbuh)! In the second case, God is responsible for
hiding the true face of Islam from ordinary Americans so that they see us as
terrorists!!! [May Allah forgive me for depicting Him as what He is not] In a
deterministic chance-absent universe, human choices and actions are useless
because, not chance but destiny, transforms them into believers or
non-believers! Therefore, those who reject the role of chance also reject free
will. Humans, like robots, accept or reject God, not through their free will
but, because they are pre-programmed to do so! No! Allah is not a puppeteer. He
is the All Compassionate, Merciful and Just God, who presents to us with
possibilities that allow us the freedom to choose right from wrong. We choose
either kill or not to kill, to know or not to know the true face of Islam etc.

God, the Knower of all
being (Al-Alim), knows that free will exists only where authentic choices
exist. So, he offers us an open future with chance events and a multitude of
possibilities that allow us to exercise our free will; otherwise, why should
mankind and other creatures be held accountable for their actions, if they have
no control over them?

Those who reject the
existence of elements of chance in real life are transforming Allah, the
Merciful and the Compassionate, into the tyrant that He is not. In Islamic
history we observe Imam al-Hasan al-Basri (b.624) rejecting a deterministic
universe. In response to a letter from Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan regarding
the doctrine of a predestined universe, he replied: “Commander of the faithful;
do not alter it or interpret it falsely. God would not openly prohibit
people from something and destine them to do it secretly[emphasis
added] as the ignorant and the heedless say. If that were so, He would not have
said in the Qur’an, 41:40: Do what you wish. He would have said: Do what I have
destined you to do. Nor would He have said in Qur’an, 18:28: Whomever wills
shall believe and whoever wills shall disbelieve. He would have said: Whoever I
will shall believe and whoever I will shall disbelieve.”

According to Qur’an,
the current universe is our testing ground where our choices and actions
generate data for presentation on the Day of Judgment. . Allah determines reward
or retribution based on the data created by our choices during our life on our
current universe. The Qur’an states: [Allah] Who created death and life in order
to try you to see who of you are best in deed (Qur’an 67:2)” and “ Or do ye
think that you shall enter the Garden (of Bliss) without such (trials) as came
to those who passed away before you?…(Qur’an 2:214)”. It also reads: “On no soul
does God place a burden greater than it can bear. It will receive every good it
earned and suffer every ill it earned… (Qur’an 2:286).” Therefore, in the
Islamic universe, human beings are free agents, given equal chances and the free
will to do moral or immoral acts--equal chances to get to heaven or hell. What
humans do matters on the Day of Judgment when God’s absolute justice wills
prevails.

The fundamental purpose
of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s (pbuh) authentic tradition is to make us aware
of heaven and hell and of the moral or immoral decisions that we could take by
the use of our free will in an unpredictable world. These sources are also
decision- making guides to what actions God allows, prohibits, or considers
neutral. He does not, however, determine or preordain individual choices and
actions. We are free to choose from contrasting possibilities that are packed as
information in each moment of the arriving future. We are free to actualize our
choices into visible physical monuments of God’s creation. God holds us
accountable if our choices violate the guidance that he revealed to us in the
Qur’an. We are not responsible for conditions such as pain and suffering,
fairness or unfairness, etc., that are inherent specific properties of each
possibilities in the coming future. An analogy will better explain the point: A
decides to throw acid on B, an innocent person. A is not accountable for the
corrosive properties of the acid but for his decision to throw it to hurt human
being. The creation of those characteristic properties of all possibilities
including that of acid is in Allah’s domain.

In the predestined
universe of anti-evolutionists, our thoughts and resulting deeds are
preordained. If so, genuine tests or trials (on earth or Judgment Day) are
impossible. An individual whose life is predestined will be arbitrarily rewarded
or punished for his choices in the Hereafter Universe (al-Akhirah)! The
Day of Judgment becomes a tyrant’s phony court hearing where pre-programmed
machines, called humans, who have no control over their actions or decisions,
are capriciously judged.

A predetermined
universe conflicts with the truth in the Qur’an, the authentic traditions, and
Islam in totality. A sound interpretation of Qur’anic truth will show that the
acceptance of chance and unpredictability is a first step on the road to God
because true believers accept responsibility for their choices in actualizing
chances and possibilities that God sends their way. Without such freedom, humans
cannot, through their effort and free will, find the Generous (Al-Karim),
Merciful (Ar-Rahman) God. Instead, like robots, they are faced with a
tyrannical force, which prompts their every move and punish them for what the
tyrant programmed them to do.

Anti-evolutionist
Muslims acknowledge the truth that Allah used the elements of chance and
unpredictability in the historical processes that produced our contemporary
nations and ways of life in which happy or horrifying unpredictable events are
daily occurrences. If chance exits in the daily affairs of human beings and
shapes their histories, how can we reject the role of chance in shaping our
biological evolution? The theory of evolution is the history of life. Allah
wants us to understand the physical and chemical laws of the universe so we can
make rational choices and decisions. However, when He intervenes in our lives,
He does not change existing physical laws as that may cause confusion among
humans.

How did God design this miraculous
universe? What are its mechanics? How does God interfere and answers prayers
without violating natural laws? How does He maintain the continuity and
directionality in evolution of the universe and life in the presence chance?
Inshah, Allah, I hope to explore these questions in my book that is yet to be
published.